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Why I decided to switch email marketing tools

My name is Robbin, and I run a Shopify store selling four self-published dog training books along with a dog training course. Email marketing has been a cornerstone of my business success from the very beginning.

Here’s my email marketing history in a nutshell:

• Before 2018: Mailchimp
• 2018–2021: Kit (formerly ConvertKit) — switched because Mailchimp lacked certain features
• 2021–present: MailerLite — switched because Kit was significantly more expensive

So why switch again?

Because I went down a rabbit hole studying what the top-performing Shopify brands are doing with email marketing and I realised I might be leaving serious money on the table.

Two specific features kept showing up in every successful e-commerce store I analysed. Features that my current tool, MailerLite, simply doesn’t support in a clean, effective way.

The two features I need

1. Multi-Step Popups

A multi-step popup is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of immediately asking for a visitor’s email address, you first ask a simple yes/no or multiple-choice question. The email input only appears on the second step.

Here’s a real example: a Shopify store shows a popup saying “You’ve got a mystery discount.” Then there are two options:

1. Yes please, reveal the discount
2. No thanks, I’ll pass

If the visitor clicks the first button, the second step reveals the email opt-in form.

Why does this work? It’s the foot-in-the-door effect, a well-documented psychology principle where someone who agrees to a small request first is far more likely to agree to a larger one afterward. The result? Significantly higher email opt-in rates.

When I checked MailerLite’s form builder, there was simply no option to add an extra step before the email input. It’s a one-step form, full stop.

2. Dynamic discount codes with countdown timers

Most stores send a single, generic discount code to everyone who signs up, something like WELCOME20. The problem is that there’s no urgency. That code never expires for the person who received it, so there’s zero pressure to actually use it.

Dynamic discount codes solve this by generating a unique code for every single subscriber, with a built-in expiry date (for example, valid for 24 hours). This connects directly to your Shopify account and creates real urgency through a countdown timer.

I checked MailerLite’s own documentation on this, and they acknowledged it themselves: generating unique coupon codes for Shopify “is a little more complex and more steps are required.” Their workaround is a bit clunky, honestly. I don’t want a solution that seems to do the trick. I want one that actually does.

I reviewed 35 email marketing tools. Here’s what I found

I made a comprehensive list of every email marketing tool I could find, 35 in total, and signed up for every single one of them. (Yes, it was a lot of emails to unsubscribe from afterward.)

I also built a full pricing spreadsheet tracking every plan and tier across all 35 tools, with a dynamic calculator to compare costs at different subscriber counts.

The result

Out of 35 email marketing platforms tested, only two support the multi-step popup system.

That’s right. 33 tools were eliminated in one shot.

The two platforms that made the cut:

• Klaviyo
• Omnisend

These two are also the only platforms that have built their entire feature set specifically around Shopify and e-commerce merchants. And when it came to dynamic discount codes with countdown timers? Same result. Only Klaviyo and Omnisend offer a clean, seamless integration with Shopify.

Klaviyo vs. Omnisend: Head-to-Head

I tested both platforms heavily with paid subscriptions and multiple months of real use. Both deliver on the two core features I needed, so the decision came down to price.

Pricing Comparison

Klaviyo is consistently 30 to 50% more expensive than Omnisend across every tier.

Putting the costs in perspective

Before those numbers scare you off, here’s a useful frame of reference. In e-commerce, a well-managed email list generates roughly $1 to $20 per subscriber per year, depending on your niche.

At 50,000 subscribers:

• The conservative estimate at $1 per subscriber means $50,000 per year from email alone.
• You’re paying roughly $5,000 per year in tool costs, which is a 10x return at minimum.
• At $5 per subscriber, you’re looking at $250,000 per year from your email list.

At that scale, the tool cost stops feeling like an expense pretty quickly.

My verdict: Omnisend wins

For my dog training business, and honestly for most Shopify stores at a similar scale, Omnisend is the clear winner.

Here’s my reasoning:

• Multi-step popups: yes
• Dynamic unique discount codes with countdown timers: yes
• Deep, clean Shopify integration: yes
• 30 to 50% cheaper than Klaviyo at every tier

Could Klaviyo be worth it for large brands doing millions in revenue? Possibly. At that scale, the price difference might be a rounding error. But for a lean, profitable operation like mine, paying $3,700 more per year for Klaviyo at the 50,000 subscriber mark is real money with no meaningful benefit over Omnisend.

I’m not switching tools for the sake of it. I’m switching because I genuinely believe a better email setup will convert more of my site visitors into buyers. The features I needed simply weren’t available in MailerLite, and Omnisend delivers them cleanly at a fair price.

Special offer

I reached out to Omnisend directly, and they agreed to offer a 30% discount (for 3 months) for my readers with no annual commitment required. You can choose the monthly plan and still get 30% off.

They also offer a free plan that includes virtually all features with no artificial limitations to force an upgrade.

Click here to get 30% off Omnisend